Generally, footwear has a sole, an upper, and a heel section. The footwear is typically classified into a shoe whose heel section does not extend above the ankle joint, and a boot whose heel section extends higher than the ankle joint.
Boots are suitable for a wearer who must work in relatively inhospitable surroundings. Boots include work footwear, safety footwear, military footwear, etc. In this case, the work footwear or the safety footwear need only prevent foreign objects from contacting a wearer's leg or entering the interior of the footwear. Thus, the work footwear or the safety footwear is worn to loosely surround the wearer's leg. On the other hand, the military footwear or the like must prevent a wearer from being injured, for example, to prevent the wearer's ankle from being sprained, due to excessive twisting, rotation, or bending of a leg portion and a foot portion between which the ankle joint is positioned, when the wearer is active with the footwear on. Thus, the military footwear or the like is worn to be in close contact with the wearer's leg.
The boot has many advantages, that is, it prevents foreign objects from entering the interior of the boot, in addition to preventing a wearer from being injured. However, the boot has a drawback in that it hinders the natural motion of the wearer's foot or ankle joint.
Therefore, for general footwear or athletic footwear, the shoe is preferable to the boot.
The shoe allows a wearer to move quickly. However, the shoe has no means to prevent the foot or the ankle joint from being excessively twisted, rotated, or bent.
Hence, the boot is preferred as athletic footwear for activities that do not require much natural motion of the ankle joint, especially riding boots. Meanwhile, in cases where it is required to allow active motion and prevent injuries to the ankle joint, like basketball shoes, a compromise between the shoe and the boot, namely, semi-boots are utilized.
However, shoes must be inevitably used as athletic footwear for sports requiring much activity, such as soccer shoes or baseball shoes. Thus, the wearer is always exposed to the danger of injury.
Taking activity into consideration, attempts have been made to develop semi-boot-style athletic footwear. For example, Korean U.M. Appln. No. 1998-5838 and Korean U.M. Appln. No. 2003-16830 have been proposed. The U.M. Appln. No. 1998-5838 was filed by the inventor of this invention, and is titled “ATHLETIC FOOTWEAR HAVING IMPROVED SAFETY AND LIFE SPAN”. Further, the U.M. Appln. No. 2003-16830 was filed by the inventor of this invention, and is titled “ATHLETIC FOOTWEAR HAVING ANKLE PROTECTOR”.
In addition, the semi-boot-style athletic footwear has been proposed in Japanese U.M. Laid-Open Publication No. Sho57-34804 which is titled “ATHLETIC FOOTWEAR”, U.S. Pat. No. 5,430,960 which is titled “LIGHTWEIGHT ATHLETIC SHOE WITH FOOT AND ANKLE SUPPORT SYSTEMS”, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,943,793 which is titled “SHOE OR BOOT WITH ADJUSTABLE ANKLE COLLAR”.
The above-mentioned semi-boot-style athletic footwear includes an ankle protecting part, which extends from an upper end of a heel section to a leg portion above the wearer's ankle joint, and is worn to surround the leg portion above the ankle joint.
Although the conventional semi-boot-style athletic footwear is provided with various means to afford unrestricted motion to a wearer, the semi-boot-style athletic footwear other than basketball shoes does not appeal to consumers.
In order to reduce the danger of injury, an ankle protector of FIG. 1 has come onto the market. Many athletes frequently put on footwear with such an ankle protector on.
However, the ankle protector 100 merely surrounds a leg portion extending from the heel of the foot to a portion above the ankle joint. That is, the ankle protector 100 is separate from the footwear, so that the ankle protector 100 may move relative to the footwear without constraint.
Therefore, although a person wears the ankle protector 100, the wearer's ankle joint may be excessively twisted, rotated, or bent, due to force exerted on the footwear.
Further, Korean U.M. Appln. No. 1989-5433 discloses an ankle protector, which is attached to footwear and worn, and is titled “ATHLETIC FOOTWEAR WITH DETACHABLE ANKLE PROTECTOR”.
The conventional ankle protector is configured such that it is fastened to an upper end of a heel section of a shoe using a zipper. When the ankle protector is fastened to the shoe, the shoe assumes the shape of the conventional semi-boot-style athletic footwear.